- Joined
- Aug 28, 2012
- Messages
- 466
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- 593
Of course they will. SGU isn't going anywhere any time soon. I don't disagree with your groupings of students. The problem is that you don't know which group you are in until well after the semester starts, and by that time the stakes are so high that itis hard to step back and be rational about your best option. Those 16 weeks per semester go very fast, and you're likely at week 8-12 before you really realize you're in trouble. One failed semester is a $40k-50k gamble at that point.
I have no idea how to answer that question. I think it's super easy to play armchair IMG/FMG medical student. Without any skin in the game, it's easy to sit back and say "I would do whatever it takes to get through." It's like asking somebody what they would do if they were on a hijacked airplane flight, or in a school shooting event or something. We all like to think that we would be the hero, that we would be willing to sacrifice ourselves or put ourselves in danger in order to save the day. But we know clearly from so many tragic examples that most people are not like that, and when push comes to shove we end up freezing, or falling back on emotional/animal instincts, or sometimes we even turn tail and run. Most people have never been in such an intense situation like that and the reality is that we all have no idea how we would respond until we're directly confronted by it. Now certainly Caribbean med school is not nearly so life-and-death, but the analogy is similar. It's a situation that likely most people have no similar experiences to draw from, so you're asked to try to make a prediction with no applicable past data to draw from.
I studied alongside people that were clearly much more intelligent than me. I studied alongside Ivy league students, PhD science graduates, motivated business people, near-Olympian level athletes, and charismatic military personnel in my SGU small groups. A lot of them did not end up graduating and some of them never Matched. There were a handful of students that always sat down front in the lecture hall that always seemed to be studying, asking great questions, were super engaged, and always present during class. I envied those people, because med school seemed to come so easily to them. Not one single person from that group ended up graduating with me. I had another close study friend who had a medical scare in Term 2 and had to fly back to the US for a surgical procedure. She had to take 1 week off to recover and was never able to get back on track after that. You can certainly stack the deck in your favor by being hardworking, intelligent, resourceful, resilient, and prepared. But don't be fooled; there is always a significant component of luck involved in all of our successes.
